The Ruling on Bowing to a Teacher in the Sport of Karate
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: I want to join a club to train in a sport called karate. He says that this sport requires the student to bow to his teacher. I told them that this is not permissible, but they said to just bow your head. Is this permissible?
Answer:
Bowing the head is sufficient, so this is not permissible. Bowing the neck and the head is for Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) alone. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: I want to join a club to train in a sport called karate. He says that this sport requires the student to bow to his teacher. I told them that this is not permissible, but they said to just bow your head. Is this permissible?
Answer:
Bowing the head is sufficient, so this is not permissible. Bowing the neck and the head is for Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) alone. Yes.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، تابع فصل ثم إن في اتخاذ القبور أعيادًا من المفاسد العظيمة ... - 2 — islamhouse.com (1:10:33)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.